Salient
by epiphanies
Summary: He asked me one day to go with him, because his mother wouldn't. To Azkaban, to visit his father. {D P}


Salient

by : epiphanies

His eyes jump out at me like that. Saliently. Gorgeous and grey. When he becomes old and tired, he will have soft skin and grey hair that nobody will notice and grey eyes that slant the exact way they always have. He shall age gracefully, as his father did.

Or, at least, until his father reached Azkaban. Without his daily drink of brandy, his skin began to sag. That's when they knew that he would die before he ever escaped.

He asked me one day to go with him, because his mother wouldn't. His mother had taken to her bed and refused to see anybody. We sailed on invisible magic carpet (illegal, don't nag) across that very cold sea in the morning, and I saw dolphins the colour of his eyes. I said naught.

We reached the shoreline and swept down gracefully, and as we set them into the check-point, he held my hand for a moment. I squeezed and he squeezed back, and I swear that there was a tear in his eye before the gates squealed open and he let go of me. He turned to steel when he saw his father, but his father was colder even than he. He whispered that he was going to escape, and I didn't believe him, because my parents don't believe he'll ever escape, but I nodded every time Draco confided his hopes in me.

Really, I think that he just wants to appear to love his father. Perhaps he's afraid of him, or respects him, but I do not believe for _one second_ that there is love there. Lucius loves nothing - love makes one weak, doesn't it?

Last week they had the funeral, actually, and I was even kind of excited because I got to wear my new black robes with the shiny clip on the front. It was a silver Slytherin emblem because even out of school, it's who I am. Who I always will be.

Draco didn't cry. He wore high necked black robes and his hair was slick and his eyes were slanted and sharp. They brimmed not once, not _once_, in that entire parade of speeches and flowers and curses. I saw the Dark Lord, which never happens. He made my heart flutter a little bit, because he's such an epitome of everything that I know and believe in. I was star-struck. He stood at the front of the line and said little. Draco's father had been one of his best front Death Eaters, I suppose, and my parents were there and kissed the Dark Lord's robes. I wrinkled my nose for a second when I reached the front of the line, but Draco stomped on my foot and I did as I was raised to. Draco must have known him much better than I, for the Dark Lord actually slid a finger onto Draco's cheek and looked him in the eye. They said nothing to each other. It frightened me.

That day was sort of lost in time, like it could have happened when we were twelve or yesterday or twenty years from now. It was like feeling like an adult and a child in one moment. Losing somebody that was close to somebody you're close to is a feeling that's difficult to describe, isn't it? Isolate and yet it cuts deep, somewhere, for a reason unknown.

I cried a little bit for Lucius. I had a crush on him when I was very small, so I felt bad that such a face could be lost to the world. That Narcissa was alone now, even though she had really always been alone, in a way. That Draco was the _man of the manor_, so to speak, unless you count the mute butler (you don't, as a rule.)

Draco brought me today, a week from _that day_, to the grave site on their property. He asked me to say something.

I shrugged, because what was there to say?

His eyes jumped out at me, like they do, and my heart weakened. What it felt like to lose a father, I could not fathom. I did love my father, for he brought me gifts from all of his travels. I have shrunken heads from nearly every country in Europe and Africa.

I still said nothing, only touched his hand and brought my other hand to the large ebony stone beside. I closed my eyes and blew a kiss to the wind.

He smiled at me then, and I knew that I was right in what I'd done, whatever that had been.

Draco grew up this week, the week his father died. He didn't age, but he grew and flourished and finally understood.

Before we left the stone, he plucked a flower (which I don't think he's done, ever, in his life) and laid it on top of it. The white petals rustled in the wind a bit, but didn't stir enough for it to fall. We breathed sighs of relief and walked back to the manor for fresh pumpkin juice, jumping over the bubbling brook between, ignoring the little bridge built for that purpose. We danced in the mud and the water, and slung it at each other. Then we went for a swim in our clothes and laughed like we did when we were children.

It felt nice to be children.

-

**end**


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